Monthly Archives: November 2011

In honor of Baylor’s big win over Texas Tech University on Saturday, here’s a recap of a similar Bears victory from 1903, this time over the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University (TCU).

At the time, TCU was located in Waco in a campus located “over the Heights” from Baylor, as the article put it. This cross-town rivalry provided endless opportunities for the people of Waco to be spectators to events like this football game played during a “Norther,” or seasonal cold front. Baylor won the contest 5-0.

Here in its entirety is the first paragraph from the article; click on the image below to view the full issue in our Baylor “Lariat” Collection.

Baylor Takes Thanksgiving Game

“Before the largest and most enthusiastic crowd of spectators that ever assembled on a foot-ball field in Waco, the Baylor team defeated the boys from over the Heights by a score of 5 to 0. It was an ideal day for foot-ball. A norther was blowing, through not hard enough to interfere with the playing, and yet made it cool enough for fast playing. The people from the city were out in large numbers to see the game, and Baylor does not fail to appreciate their patronage. The special train from Dallas brought the Medical students down and with them a large number of other Dallasites, who were, of course, out to see the game and helped to swell the crowd. The Medicoes were not lacking in college spirit and loyalty to Mother Baylor. They had their yells and could yell them. In this they had the home rooters bested. Seeing that our crowd were getting the worst of it, at one time, they marched in a body in front to the T.C.U. rooters and with a vim, that should teach us a lesson, gave vent to some real college yells that fairly drowned the voices of their opponents. We should profit by their example of organized rooting.”

On the Friday night before Baylor’s homecoming win against Missouri, a team of Electronic Library staff and graduate assistants unveiled an exciting new project to the 30-year reunion of Baylor football’s 1980 Southwest Conference championship-winning team.

The project: the Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive, a unique partnership between the Electronic Library, Baylor Athletics, and Baylor’s Institute for Oral History. Established to collect, preserve, and display materials related to Baylor’s 100-plus history of collegiate sports, the Archive was rolled out at the reception for the 1980 team, hosted by their legendary coach, Grant Teaff.

Presently, items in the Archive are focused on Baylor football, specifically the Grant Teaff era from 1972 to 1992. The Grant and Donell Teaff Baylor Football Collection makes up the bulk of the collection at this time, with a special emphasis on the 1980 team that clinched the SWC championship and clashed with the University of Alabama in the 1981 Cotton Bowl.

The Archive features hundreds of photographs, promotional items, posters, videos, and audio clips that tell the stories of the athletes who represented the Green and Gold in athletic events of all types. The ultimate goal of the project is to collect and display materials from every sport Baylor athletes have participated in since the school’s founding.

Feedback from the attendees was uniformly positive, with several players responding with excited disbelief when they heard their photo was in the Archive. During several demos to 1980 team members, the men would begin to recount stories: memories of a particular game, nicknames of teammates, remembrances of important events, even wisdom imparted on them as 20-year-old athletes by Coach Teaff.

It is these personal reactions to the materials in the Archive that quickly reveal the impact this Archive can have on anyone interested in not just the history of Baylor athletics, but also the personal stories of the men and women who used their physical prowess to support their alma mater.

We hope you’ll take a moment to browse the Archive and relive some of the amazing moments in Baylor athletics history you’ll find inside. The 400+ items available now are just the beginning of the important work to come, so check back often.

Photos from the event

Tim Logan, Assistant Vice President for the Electronic Library, demos the Archive on a large-screen display for an attendee.

Graduate assistant Rachel Carson, from the BU Museum Studies program, demonstrates the Archive to a member of the 1980 team.

In June of this year, Lt. Col. Shawn Callahan of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College contacted the Digitization Projects Group with an exciting request. As part of his planning for a major training course for officers from all branches of the United States military, Callahan was trying to find maps of the 1862 Peninsular Campaign, which had been led by U.S. Gen. George B. McClellan against the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Gen. Robert E. Lee. A Google search led him to our Digital Collections, which includes a fully searchable, freely accessible copy of the “War of the Rebellion Atlas,” the definitive source for maps related to the U.S. Civil War.

Callahan’s idea was to use primary resources derived from the campaign – particularly maps – to pose this problem to his students: based only on the information available to McClellan at the time, how would you have planned and conducted this campaign?

After finding what he needed in our “War of the Rebellion Atlas” collection, Callahan contacted the DPG to request high-resolution versions of the maps that he could then print out and provide as reference materials for his students. Of course, we were eager to help and readily provided Callahan with the maps he requested. Digital Collections Consultant Eric Ames also worked to identify other maps that embraced the time, place, and force outlays related to the campaign, ultimately providing 30 images to Callahan for use in the course.

The training was held in late September, with members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and international officers from 28 nations participating. These photos show the officers consulting large-format printouts of the maps as they formulated their strategy for the Peninsular Campaign.

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We received a letter of appreciation from Col. Royal P. Mortenson, Director of the College, expressing his thanks for providing access to the high-res files, as well as our efforts to support “an educational initiative which has sharpened our military leaders and will help maximize their contributions to our national defense.” He went on to say, “Your efforts to coordinate access to Baylor University’s digital archives for the Command and Staff College faculty were instrumental to the success of this exercise.” (2)

From everyone at the DPG – and on behalf of our colleagues at the Texas Collection, where the pristine original copy of the “Atlas” is preserved – we want to thank the fine men and women of the U.S. Marine Corps for allowing us to participate in this exercise, and we are proud of the opportunity to help support their efforts to keep our country safe.